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POLITICS

Spain recognises Kosovo passports, but not independence

Spain now accepts passports issued by Kosovar but still does not recognise it as an independent state separate from Serbia, Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said Monday.

Spain recognises Kosovo passports, but not independence
A Kosovo passport, now recognised by Spain as of 2024. Photo: Armend NIMANI/AFP.

Madrid recognised the passports after a long-awaited European Union visa liberalisation scheme came into force on January 1, allowing Kosovar citizens to travel within Europe’s borderless zone without a visa.

The new regime enables Kosovars into the Schengen zone visa-free for periods of up to 90 days in any 180-day period.

Until now, Spain was the only EU member refusing to recognise Kosovo’s independence that also refused entry to Kosovo passport holders even if they had obtained a Schengen visa.

“Spain still does not recognise the sovereignty or independence of Kosovo because we do not recognise unilateral declarations of independence,” Albares told reporters.

The Spanish government has long grappled with its own independence movements in Catalonia and the Basque Country.

Spain is one of five EU countries that do not recognise the Balkan state, which declared independence from Serbia in 2008. The others are Cyprus, Greece, Romania and Slovakia.

Kosovo’s Deputy Prime Minister Besnik Bislimi on Saturday welcomed Madrid’s recognition of Kosovo’s passports, writing on Facebook that “the good news continues for our citizens and our country”.

Kosovo, which has a population of around 1.8 million people, was the last of the six countries in the Western Balkans to receive the visa waiver.

Previously, Kosovar citizens had been allowed to visit just 14 countries worldwide without a visa.

The EU move is perceived in Pristina as another step toward full recognition and a boost for its ambitions of joining the European Union.

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POLITICS

First pardons granted under Spain’s amnesty for Catalan separatists

A politician and police officer on Tuesday became the first people to benefit from Spain's divisive amnesty law for Catalan separatists involved in a botched 2017 secession bid.

First pardons granted under Spain's amnesty for Catalan separatists

The amnesty law – approved last month – is expected to affect around 400 people facing trial or already convicted over their roles in the wealthy northeastern region’s failed independence push, which triggered Spain’s worst political crisis in decades.

Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez agreed to grant the amnesty in exchange for the key support of Catalan separatist parties in parliament to secure a new term in office following an inconclusive general election last July.

READ ALSO: Spain’s contested Catalan amnesty bill comes into force

The separatist parties have threatened to withdraw their support for Sánchez’s minority government unless the amnesty is applied.

Catalonia’s High Court said it had decided to “declare the extinction of criminal responsibility” for former Catalan regional interior minister Miquel Buch, as well as to Lluís Escolà, an officer in Catalonia’s regional police force, since the crimes they were convicted of “have been amnestied”.

Buch was sentenced last year to four and a half years in jail for embezzlement and misappropriation for hiring Escolà in 2018 and paying him out of public coffers to act as a bodyguard for the former head of the regional Catalan government, Carles Puigdemont, while he was in self-imposed exile in Belgium.

Escolà was handed a four-year prison sentence for working as Puigdemont’s bodyguard.

Puigdemont fled Spain to avoid arrest shortly after his government led Catalonia’s failed secession push, which involved an independence referendum that was banned by the courts followed by a short-lived declaration of independence.

Spain’s conservative opposition has staged massive street protests against the amnesty law, which judges must decide to apply on a case-by-case basis.

Puigdemont had said he hopes to return to Spain but there is still a warrant for his arrest and a Spanish court continues to investigate him for the alleged crimes of embezzlement and disobedience related to the secession bid.

He also remains under investigation for alleged terrorism over protests in 2019 against the jailing of several referendum leaders that sometimes turned violent.

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